Protection by ethyl pyruvate against gamma radiation induced damage in bovine serum albumin

Abstract

Environmental factors like ionizing radiation induced generation of reactive oxygen species (ROS) cause macromolecular damage under physiological conditions. Proteins are the potential targets of ROS induced oxidative damage because of their abundance and their critical functions in the biological systems. The present study investigates the protective potential of ethyl pyruvate (EP) against ionizing radiation induced oxidative damage of bovine serum albumin (BSA) using spectroscopic, biochemical and SDS-PAGE techniques. Spectroscopic data shows that EP prevents the build up of protein damage markers like bityrosine formation and oxidation of tryptophan. Protein melting studies shows that the melting temperature (T_m) of the irradiated protein does not change significantly in the presence of EP. Biochemical assays indicate that ionizing radiation causes the generation of carbonyls and malondialdehyde and the loss of thiol content in proteins that is prevented by EP. The SDS-PAGE profile of gamma irradiated BSA shows the radioprotective effect of EP. These results indicate the radiation induced oxidative and molecular changes in the protein and that the EP protected the BSA from these modifications. Therefore, these results imply that EP has a good antiradical property and hence it can be proposed as a good radioprotective agent.

Keywords: BSA, fluorescence; Bityrosine; Carbonylation; Malondialdehyde, BSA melting; SDS-PAGE.